When was the last time you actually heard nothing? I do not mean the kind of quiet you get when you put on noise-canceling headphones but can still catch the faint buzz of the AC. I mean the kind of silence where the world almost surprises you by how still it is. For me, I honestly cannot remember. There is always noise – someone dragging a chair across the floor, construction pounding in the distance, or the playlist in the dining hall that insists on turning every salad into a music video.

Silence has become a stranger. And yet, every time I stumble into it – maybe at 2 a.m., walking back to my dorm when the campus feels asleep – I realize how starved I am for it. In those moments, I can hear my own thoughts clearly, without the static. It feels less like emptiness and more like medicine. Studies confirm this: researchers at the University of California found that just two minutes of silence can significantly reduce stress hormones, like cortisol, in thebloodstream. Two minutes. That is all it takes.

We talk about sustainability as if it is restricted to recycling bins, solar panels, or carbon emissions. But what if silence is something we should fight to sustain, too? After all, noise is a kind of pollution. It may not pile up in landfills or choke sea turtles, but it does creep onto us, shaping the way we live and breathe. According to the World Health Organization, exposure to environmental noise above 55 decibels can increase the risk of heart disease and hypertension, affecting over 100 million people in Europe alone. The effects are not just limited to humans either. Birds can lose their rhythm when traffic gets too loud and whales literally change their songs because of shipping routes, sometimes altering frequencies by 20–30 Hz just to communicate. If noise fractures the natural world this much, why do we assume that we are immune to it?

Think about the moment right before a professor begins class, those few seconds where the room is waiting together, quietly. Even these little silences hold weight. They let us notice the world – and ourselves – without being drowned out. They quietly tell us it is okay to sit with stillness, to not rush, to let some spaces just be. Neuropsychologists argue that brief pauses in daily life enhance memory retention and creativity, essentially giving our brains “space to breathe”.

The truth is, silence asks us to slow down, and slowing down is uncomfortable. Maybe that is why we keep drowning it out, because the stillness makes us notice things we would rather ignore: how tired we are, how many resources we are consuming, how fast we are running through our own lives. But what if that discomfort is exactly the point? What if silence is the pause that makes everything else clearer, the way a momentary rest music makes the next note hit harder?

Sustainability is not just about fixing the planet. It is about rethinking how we live as humans: messy, noisy, and overwhelmed. And maybe one of the most radical things we can do is turn the volume down. To listen. To let the world breathe. To let ourselves breathe.

I will leave you with a suggestion: tomorrow, try to find just a few minutes of real silence. Step away from your phone, your music, your to-do list, and just sit. And if you can, invite someone to sit with you - no talking, no scrolling, no distractions - just two people sharing the same quiet. Notice what it feels like. Notice what you hear, what you think, what you feel. Treat these moments like little treasures, because they do more than calm your mind - they help you remember what it is like to really be alive. Start small, start today, and let silence become a gift you give yourself and the world.